When Life Gives You Lemons
by SingsongRandom
Summary: Liz Lemon is having a bad day. Inspired by the song "The Feeling" by Ben Rector. I own nothing. Please read & review!


**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

"Mocha latte with a shot of espresso!"

Liz groaned and folded her arms over her chest. Waiting in line for coffee with twenty nameless strangers in front of her was not the way she had wanted to start her day. "Can't they hurry this up? I'm going to be late," she whispered to no one in particular, and a moment later removed her iPhone from her pocket to text Jack. Quickly she typed 'Sorry running late be there soon' and the familiar _ping! _was heard when she hit send.

Liz started to tap her foot, growing impatient. Ordinarily, she would have opted for something other than coffee, like fruit punch and ice cubes in a Star Wars thermos. Today, however, she knew she would probably have to stay late at the studio, as it was that time of year again to shoot promos and revise sketches with the writers - this meant that caffeine would be absolutely necessary. "Come on, people," she grumbled, "how hard is it to make some coffee?"

She was one of the smaller people in the crowd, and thus was the object of much shoving as people shifted from the front counter to the other side of the room. "Hey, watch it!" Liz hissed when someone bumped into her side. Wearily she made her way to the register, and at last placed her order.

"I'll have a grande cappucino with a double shot of espresso, extra caffeine - oh, and hold the foam." Liz did her best to force a smile and just as the barista opened her mouth to speak, Liz's eyes drifted to the pastries to her left, covered by a glass dome. "And," she added, "I'm also gonna need a chocolate chunk cookie...and a cheese danish. And a piece of that marble pound cake." She finished the order with a look of accomplishment on her face.

After paying the barista, Liz did her best to shuffle past people to get to the other counter and wait for her name to be called. Her eyes suddenly met her watch - she had to get to work. She stood up on her tiptoes and called out, "Is there any way you could speed this up a little?" but struggled to see over the tops of the heads of taller people. She hardly intended to sound rude, but between the nearly unbearable noise level and the waves of people coming and going, she didn't apologize. Instead she grabbed the coffee when it was placed on the counter in front of her and continued out the door.

_Ping!_ went her phone, notifying her that she'd just received a text, and checked it while she took the first sip of her coffee. Immediately she spit the coffee out all over her phone.

"Decaf," she said through gritted teeth. _Now how am I supposed to stay awake all day?_

She tried to dry her now soggy phone with the sleeve of her jacket, struggling to balance the coffee on her knee as she did so. Then out of the blue the wind picked up, causing Liz's hair to fly every which way and while she tried to tie it up into a messy ponytail, the hot coffee spilled all over her.

"Ugh!" She scrambled to clean up the mess. "This is the worst day ever and it's not even ten AM!" She bent down to pick up the coffee cup, not realizing she was standing right in front of the shop door and once it smacked her posterior, she was sent flying forward and landed on the ground with a _thud_.

"Blerg."

* * *

"Lemon," greeted Jack with an unusual cheeriness when he saw her, slightly amused by her disheveled appearance. "What happened to you? Your hair's a mess, how did it get all smashed up on one side like that? -"

She glared at him, obviously bothered that he was enjoying this, but took a deep breath and said, "I'm fine, it's just...been a rough day." Her gaze softened as she listed, "First I overslept because my alarm clock stopped working - might have something to do with the fact that I threw it out the window yesterday, but I don't know -"

"Why - pray tell - did you throw your alarm clock out the window?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, there was a bee in my room and I missed." Jack shook his head in disapproval but waited for her to continue her laundry list of things that had gone wrong. "Then once I left my house I realized I grabbed the wrong set of keys, so I'm probably going to have to climb in through my neighbor's window later, and he gets so mad when I do that. Then I went to get coffee and of course -"

"You Lemoned it?" Jack inferred, a grin forming on his lips.

"Yes," she sighed, defeated. "I totally Lemoned it."

Jack took a moment to look her over. "You also got dressed in the dark this morning," he stated.

"Yeah," Liz said, "don't even get me started on that - wait, how did you know?"

His gaze dropped to her feet. "You're wearing slippers."

"Nerds!" she mumbled with a stomp. "I don't believe this!" She paused for a moment, waving a hand in front of her face. "All right, I'm going to get through this day the same as I would any other."

"With a humorous mantra and a ham sandwich?" Jack suggested, a curious glint in his eye.

Liz nodded. "Exactly." She yawned, then said, "Well, I've got to go over these scripts with the writers and then get Tracy and Jenna into rehearsal, so I'll see you later Jack."

With that, she turned on her heel and was off.

* * *

When she got to the writer's room, Liz found Frank, Toofer, Lutz, and Sue playing a game of catch with a cantaloupe.

"What are you nerds doing?" she asked.

Frank glanced at her. "Oh, hey Liz," he said. "We're just throwing this melon back and forth."

"Why?"

"It's fun," said Lutz.

"Shut up, Lutz," said Frank and Liz at the same time. Toofer exchanged a confused glance with Sue. Liz shook her head but looked for no other explanation. "All right, well we really need to get to work. We have a lot to do today and -"

Frank pointed at her. "Got it. We're totally on it. But first, here, Liz, catch!" He tossed the melon at her, and before she could protest, it hit her on the head and she fell to the ground.

"Guess I won't be getting that raise," were Frank's last mumbled words that Liz heard before losing consciousness.

* * *

"Lemon? Lemon, can you hear me? – Oh, she's opening her eyes, everyone."

Liz awoke to see Jack standing over her, his cloudy blue eyes gazing into her own brown ones. She blinked a few times. "Jack," she said, her lips forming a thankful smile. "Uh…what happened?" she asked.

Jack looked at Frank, who smiled sheepishly.

"We'll discuss it later. Here, let me help you." He extended an arm and she took it, his grip stronger than she thought. Once she got to her feet, she noticed a number of others standing around her in a tight circle. Cerie, Kenneth, Pete, and of course the writers were there, offering Liz their sympathetic looks. "Wow," said Liz, still slightly dizzy, "you're all here to make sure I'm okay? That's so –"

"Actually, we just wanted to know whether or not we were going to have a head writer anymore," said Frank.

Pete shot Frank a glare. "Do us all a favor and take your foot out of your mouth Frank," he muttered. Frank merely shrugged and said, "I was under the impression that my truthful nature is to be expected in the workplace."

Liz sighed and rubbed her temples. "All right, all right. There's nothing else to see here, everyone back to work."

The huddle dispersed quickly, with the exception of Jack, who gave his friend a pat on the back. "You really are having a bad day.

"Yeah," Liz snorted, "you'd think I'd be used to it by now."

"That's not a very positive attitude."

Liz studied Jack for a moment, tongue-in-cheek. _He hasn't got the slightest idea what a bad day is like!_she thought. "Listen, Donaghy," she told him, "we can't all be you. I don't have people waiting in line to polish my shoes -"

"Slippers," Jack corrected, which was clearly a mistake, as her tone became more heated. "I don't need Jack the mentor right now. I need Jack the friend."

He sighed. "All right, Lemon."

"And another thing! -" Liz was about to add, then stopped. "Oh. Okay, see you later then." As she turned to walk away, Jack called after her, "Try and turn the day around, Lemon. I'm sure you'll feel better after lunch. Food generally tends to satisfy your -" he searched for the right phrase - "irregular mood swings."

Unsure of whether it was a compliment or an insult, her only response was an eye-roll, which Jack couldn't even see.

* * *

"Liz!"

"Hey, LL!"

She turned to see her two stars running towards her frantically. "What's up?" she asked.

"There's a spider in my dressing room," Jenna said, at the same time Tracy said, "My dog ate my scripts."

A baffled Liz tilted her head. _It's going to be a long day._

That it was. The rest of the day carried on quite slowly and was filled with various predicaments that not even a humorous mantra and a ham sandwich could fix. When Jenna had told Liz that there was a spider in her dressing room, Liz had assumed she meant that there was a small arachnid in the corner of the wall spinning a web.

Not exactly.

When Tracy had told Liz that his dog ate her scripts, she hadn't the slightest idea for what it was a metaphor.

No, he'd meant it literally; he brought his dog to work and it ate every word the writers had come up with.

At least it was only Monday - and at that point, Liz wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Towards the end of the day, Liz gathered her belongings in a large black bag and realized it had become heavier since that morning. She hurried down the stairs as fast as she could, desperate to return to her apartment and forget about the day's events, and in the process nearly fell down the steps.

Once outside, she noticed a cluster of dark clouds had begun to roll in. "No," she breathed. She considered for a moment taking a cab home, but decided against it. With the way her luck was going, she knew she would get stuck with some creepy cabbie who would smell like rotten cheese and then try and hit on her. Surely she could get back to Riverside Drive before the rain would start.

It began to pour.

Droplets of water hitting her face, Liz looked up at the sky. "Why me?" she wondered aloud. The only response was a loud clap of thunder.

She adjusted her bag, which was weighing her down on the right side and making her appear lopsided. She shoved her hands in her pockets, kicking up a pile of leaves in her path.

"Lemon!"

She turned around to see Jack waving, hurrying to catch up to her. She forced a smile. "Hi, Jack. What are you doing –"

He took something out of his coat pocket and handed it to her. "I believe you dropped this in the stairwell." It was her wallet.

The smile became genuine. "Thank you." She put it in her bag, which she adjusted once more. "I think I dislocated my shoulder," she said, switching to the left side. Jack took it from her. "Here, let me."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "Isn't your driver waiting for you somewhere?" she looked around but the limo was nowhere in sight.

Jack grinned. "I sent him home. Would you mind if I walked you back to your apartment?"

"It's pouring."

"That wasn't the question."

Liz laughed a little. "I would like that."

The two walked arm in arm for a while, talking the whole way. "So you had a bad day, Lemon. It happens."

"Yeah, only it happens to me all the time. Today was just…something else. I got hit in the head with a melon, for Pete's sake!" Liz said. "Oh well. At least it's over now."

Jack sighed and put his arm around her. "Oh, Lemon..." He pointed to inside a restaurant where a redheaded waitress was serving a young couple. "You see her?" Jack said.

"Yeah. Let me guess, you _know _her," Liz half-joked.

Jack shook his head. "No." He pointed up ahead to the corner where a bearded man in a knit hat was smoking a cigarette. "You see him?"

"Yeah."

"They know what a bad day is like. Everyone knows that feeling. _I_ know what it's like. We're all different people, Lemon, but we share similar experiences and feelings."

Liz looked at him. "That may be one of the most profound things you've ever said."

"In your company, at the least."

She smiled. "I know what you're saying, Jack. It's just...stressful."

He nodded. "I know. But you know what they say. When life gives you lemons -" he winked, "make lemonade."

It was then that Liz decided that it hadn't been such a bad day after all.

**The End.**


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